Dispersals ERC

29/04/2026

DISPERSALS team members head to the Society for American Archaeology meeting in San Francisco USA this week! Dr. Elena Skosey-LaLonde, Dr. Gina Buckley, and Sarah Foley join with other Early Career Researchers this Friday May 1st to share the exciting results of their research! Join us in Session 221 Innovations in Isotope Analysis: Emerging Voices and Evolving Approaches for an afternoon of isotopes and more 🌍

⛈️ 2:30pm - The Climate of Agriculture: Monsoon and Temperature pressures on Early and Late Farming Communities in southern Mozambique.
Elena T. Skosey-LaLonde, Reink Smittenberg, Gideon Hartman, Ana Gomes, Vera Gomes, M***a Raja and Nuno Bicho

🦷 3:30pm - Lead Isotope Baselines and Human Enamel Analysis at Teotihuacan: Assessing Feasibility for Paleomobility Studies.
Gina M. Buckley, María Fernanda García Hurtado, Gabriela Solis-Pichardo, George Kamenov and Virginie Renson

🌿 4:00pm - Toward a Bioavailable Sr-Isoscape of Mozambique: analysis of Faunal Enamel from Colouche Cave 1.
Sarah Marie Foley, Gina M. Buckley, Hannah James, Christophe Snoeck and Nuno Bicho

03/02/2026

🎓Recent Graduates🎓
In 2025, the DISPERSALS team was delighted to celebrate the graduation of two students:

⚒️Milton Chirindza successfully defended his MA thesis, The Formation of Zimuara, a Stone Age Site in Central Mozambique: A Study Based on Sedimentology and Geochemistry.

🔬Elena Skosey-LaLonde successfully defended her doctoral dissertation, Ancient Futures: Paleoclimate Changes and Social Resilience in Late Quaternary Mozambique.

We wish them both continued success in their research—especially their work in Mozambique! 🇲🇿 🎉

26/01/2026

Our Student Spotlight this week features newcomer Osama Samawi. Osama’s research focuses on reconstructing past human behavior through the study of stone tools in Southeast Africa during the dispersals of our species in the Late Pleistocene. His interests also include replicating stone technologies through knapping to better understand the technological decisions made by hominins, as well as conducting spatial analysis… and he is a master of refitting! We are lucky to have him on the team.

12/01/2026

A new week of study - and discovery! This weeks student spotlight is of our PhD student Sarah Foley. Sarah’s research uses stable and radiogenic isotopic analyses to contextualize the population, behavioral, and environmental dynamics central to the expansion and dispersal of Homo sapiens in southeast Africa.

Sarah especially interested in hominin interactions with their environment, specifically the impact of climate change on dietary breadth and landscape use across different biomes. We can’t wait to see Sarah progress in her dissertation research.

05/01/2026

Our first spotlight of 2026 is of PhD student Takalani Dubayi. Takalani is researching human mobility during the late Pleistocene in southern Africa using computational methods including: Agent-based modelling, GIS and Network Analysis. Takalani has presented her research at multiple conferences, and we look forward to seeing her thesis results.

11/12/2025

We’re delighted to share that the SAAS Society has highlighted recent fieldwork from the DISPERSALS Project in their Fieldwork Spotlight series. The feature focuses on two sites in Mozambique – Chessungalane, an open-air archaeological site with a remarkable quartz lithic assemblage, and the Colouche Caves, a key locality preserving deposits from the Stone Age to the Iron Age.

The DISPERSALS Project brings together researchers and students from across the SADC region and partner institutions worldwide, strengthening capacity-building and fostering collaboration in archaeology, geoarchaeology, lithic analysis, and palaeoenvironmental reconstruction.

12/08/2025

🗺️ archaeological research in Mozambique has mapped several areas of the country, identifying 600 sites and nine caves, shedding light on 30–50,000 years of human evolution.

Read the full story 👉 https://www.rtp.pt/noticias/cultura/pesquisas-arqueologicas-em-mocambique-desvendam-30-a-50-mil-anos-da-evolucao-humana_n1675626

As pesquisas arqueológicas em Moçambique realizadas pelo arqueólogo Nuno Bicho, que mapeou várias áreas do país, identificaram 600 jazidas e nove grutas, ajudando a desvendar 30 a 50 mil anos da evolução humana, disse à Lusa o investigador.

07/06/2025

Missed us?
We said we’d be back — and here we come.
The 2025 field season of the DISPERSALS project is taking off!
Mozambique, we're on our way.
Stay tuned for updates!

08/02/2025

📢 Tracing humanity’s path: the DISPERSALS project and the origins of global migration
The project is featured in Project Repository Journal, exploring how archaeology and science uncover the deep history of human movement across the globe.
📖 Read it here: https://bit.ly/3Cu0FWY

Project Repository Journal - PRj 22 Jan 2025

30/06/2024

🌍✨ Field season in DISPERSALS is wrapping up! ✨🌍
After an incredible season, we're concluding our fieldwork in Mozambique for the year. A huge thank you to our dedicated team and everyone who supported us throughout this journey!
ICArEHB